Crafting Felted Slippers

I've had a hankering to make felted wool slippers for a very long time. Now, I've made crocheted and felted slippers, even had my pattern published in SpinOff. And I've crochet amazing woolly slippers from raw fleece. But I wanted to learn to make felted slippers from wool, just by felting, without any needle art in between the fleece and the wearing.

That's been a long involved learning process! I've failed, I've learned, I've succeeded, I've learned, I've practiced, I've learned and now I'm wearing a pair of alpaca and kid mohair slippers that I just love.

So, I'm ready to share a quick pictorial of my process. I use only fleece from our animals- Jacob sheep wool, mohair and alpaca. Through trial and error, I've learned the fleece must be washed first to felt well. This is a pair of alpaca and mohair slippers I made for my mom.

1. First you draw out and cut the pattern/resist. A cheap textured plastic placemat works well. Cut about 1/2 inch wider than the person's foot.

Weigh and prep your fiber. Don't skip this step! Lesson learned the hard way.

Lay out your under towel, your super heavy duty bubble wrap, your netting and your soap. The soap matters. This is handmade soap from the Village Apothecary Shop at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. It works well.

Lay your resist/pattern on your bubble wrap and cover with your first layer of fluff, fibers mostly going one direction.

Layer your second layer of fiber over the first, going the opposite direction. Build up five layers of lightly fluffed fiber.

Put netting over pile of fluff.

Pour boiling water in a spiral over fluff.

Rub soap over netting being careful not to shift fiber sideways.

Pat, pat, pat.

Flip.

Wrap the loose fringy edges over the resist.

Repeat.

Once you have all your fiber for that slipper wrapped around your resist, roll it up in the bubble wrap and towel and roll, roll, roll for 8 minutes. Set a timer ('nother lesson) it's longer that you think. 

Decide where you want the opening on your slippers and cut. Make sure you felt the cut edges immediately. More lessons. 

Make a last for further shaping and felting. Duct tape and old socks on the person's foot whom the slippers are for. Very bad English!

Finish shaping, embellishing and drying your slippers on the last. 

Cut a leather sole using the original resist as a pattern and stitch to bottom of slippers. 

Wear and enjoy!

Sheep to squirrel - a needle felting journey

This is Demi-sheep. She's our Iceladic x Corriedale ewe. Her mum was Chalcedony and her daddy was Homer. She loves her morning grain, especially in this winter snow. Demi grows the wool I'm using to needle felt the Arkansas gray squirrels I've been making. 

This squirrel is needle felted from Demi's wool over a wire armature. He's excited to be headed to the Arkansas Flower and Garden show where he'll be a part of the Ozark Folk Center secret garden. 

Forks in the Artistic Road

When our kids were teens, and we were in the "advice-giving" stage, we'd say, "When you come to a fork in the road - take it! We're always running short of forks." With four teenagers in the house, that was always true. I really don't know, and don't want to know, what they did with all my forks.

My artistic, creative, crafting road has forked many times. As a young person, I crocheted endless afghans and granny squares and edgings on blue jean skirts. When my kids were little, I created a line of animal capes and the story-telling business EsCapades. As my love of dance drew me, I designed first my own and then increasingly elaborate cabaret-style belly dance costumes for sale. I crocheted more than 15,000 Spirit Bells myself and had a business that allowed women to work from home crocheting thousands more. My woven shawls are traveling-on of that fork in the road.

This worked together with my sheep and goats and twin passions for history and farming to lead me into creating my Fleecyful rugs, over many years of experimentation. There've been many side trips over the years. At this very moment, I'm wearing a pair of foot-coverings crocheted from my sheep's unspun fleece. I have lots of one-of's in my closet and in boxes, and many unidentifiable unfinished objects that haven't even made it that far.

There are two paths that have been pulling at my attention for the last few years. One is making handbags with my handwovens. I've made several, tested a few myself, sold all of the nicer ones and have two in the works right now, with materials for many more in a box. I poke myself to work on them almost every weekend now, but haven't quite started yet. I guess I'm just not ready to take that fork in hand.

An unfinished fork in my artistic path

The other is needle-felting. I do it, most of you have one of my needle felted dryer balls. I've done a wee bit of embellishment with needle felt on the handbags I've made, or started. And I have an Unfinished Tapestry (yep, I showed it in a gallery under that title) that combines weaving, wood work, embroidery and needle felting. I have a chance to take a needle felting workshop with an excellent teacher this next week. I just don't know. Am I ready to take this fork?

Where can you find my Fleecyful Rugs?

A Sultan Mohair Rug woven on a green warp
currently for sale at the
Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery

Cowslip Fleecyful Wool Rug at home.

I've been posting the new rugs I'm finishing on facebook and I've been getting questions about where people can find my rugs.

Currently, as of July 2012, most of my Fleecyful Rugs are for sale at the Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery at 104 Main Street in Mountain View, Arkansas.

I do have some finished rugs at home, you can call, email or leave me a message here and we can arrange to get together.

I will be at the World Sheep and Fiber Festival in Bethel, Missouri on September 1 & 2, 2012.

We will be welcoming visitors to the farm and studios during Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour on September 14 thru 16, 2012. I'll have many rugs, shawls, felt dryer balls and hopefully quite a few of my new handbags ready for Studio Tour.

We'll have our same booth at the Christmas Showcase in Little Rock on December 6-9, 2012.

If I have any rugs left after Showcase, I'll put them up in our Common Threads Etsy Store in December and January.

If you have any rug questions, just give me a holler.